Thursday, 27 September 2012

Signs
of civilization loom over the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu,
California, on the northern edge of Los Angeles. These mountains contain
the last semi-wilderness in Los Angeles County but are under threat of
development. Some 84 percent of the state's residents live within 30
miles of the coast, and this concentration has resulted in increased
land use pressure. Shoreline development has been restricted since the
passage of the Coastal Zone Conservation Act in November 1972: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)

It
is only a few miles’ drive to the ocean, but before reaching it I
shall be nowhere. Hard to describe the impression of unreality, because
it is intangible; almost supernatural; something in the air. (The air .
. . Last night on the weather telecast the commentator, mentioning
electrical storms near Palm Springs and heavy smog in Los Angeles,
described the behavior of the air as ‘neurotic’. Of course. Like
everything else the air must be imported and displaced, like the water
driven along huge aqueducts from distant reservoirs, like the palm trees
tilting above the mortuary signs and laundromats along Sunset
Boulevard.) Nothing belongs. Nothing belongs except the desert and the
gruff eroded-looking mountains to the north. Because the earth is
desert, its surface always has that terrible dusty brilliance. Sometimes
it looks like the Riviera with a film of neglect over villas and
gardens, a veil of fine invisible sand drawn across tropical colours. It
is hard to be reminded of any single thing for long. These houses are
real because they exist and people use them for eating and sleeping and
making love, but they have no style of their own and look as if they've
been imported from half a dozen different countries. They are imitation
'French Provincial' or 'new' Regency or Tudor or Spanish hacienda or
Cape Cod, and except for a few crazy mansions seem to have sprung up
overnight. The first settlers will be arriving tomorrow from parts
unknown.

.

How
to grasp something unfinished yet always remodeling itself, changing
without a basis for change? So much visible impatience to be born, to
grow, such wild tracts of space to be filled: difficult to settle in a
comfortable unfinished desert. Because of the long confusing distances,
the streets are empty of walking people, full of moving cars. Between
where you are and where you are going to be is a no-man's-land. At night
the neon signs glitter and the shop windows are lighted stages, but
hardly anyone stops to look. A few people huddle at coffee stalls and
hamburger bars. Those dark flat areas are parking lots, crammed solid.

I suppose that Europeans, accustomed to a world that changes more
calmly and more slowly, are not much interested any more in imitating
its surface. It becomes more exciting to see appearances as a mask, a
disguise or illusion that conceals an unexpected meaning. The theme of
illusion and reality is very common in Europe. In America, illusion and
reality are still often the same thing. The dream is the achievement,
the achievement is the dream.

.

The ocean appears suddenly. You turn another hairpin bend
and the land falls away and there is a long high view down Santa Monica
Canyon to the pale Pacific waters. A clear day is not often. Sky and air
are hazed now, diffusing the sun and dredging the ocean of its rightful
blue. The Pacific is a sad blue-grey, and nearly always looks cold.

Each time I drive down here it feels like the end of the world. The
geographical end. Shabby and uncared for, buildings lie around like
nomads' tents in the desert. There is nowhere further to go, those pale
waters stretch away to the blurred horizon and stretch away beyond it.
There is no more land ever.

High
lurching cliffs confront the ocean, and are just beginning to fall
apart. Signs have been posted along the highway, DRIVE CAREFULLY and
SLIDE AREA. Lumps of earth and stone fall down. The land is restless
here, restless and sliding. Driving inland towards the mountains, it is
the same: BEWARE OF ROCKS. The land is falling. Rocks fall down all over
and the cliffs called Pacific Palisades are crumbling slowly down to
the ocean. Who called them Palisades, I wonder? They cannot keep out the
Pacific. There are mad eccentric houses above the Palisades, with
turrets and castellations and tall Gothic windows, but no one wants to
live in them any more in case the ground slides away.

Seminole
Springs Mobile Home Park on Mulholland Drive near Malibu, California,
on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County, is one of the few
developments in the Santa Monica Mountains: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Looking down from the Santa Monica Mountains towards Highway #1 near Malibu, California,
on the northern edge of Los Angeles: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Houses near the Pacific Ocean north of Malibu, California,
on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County. The Santa Monica Mountains are seen in the background: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Looking down from the Santa Monica Mountains towards Highway #1 in the distance near Malibu, California,
on the northern edge of Los Angeles: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)

The cliffs of Malibu -- watch out for landslides: photo by Kat Howard, 21 February 2006

Let us go then you and I and eighteen million more to that lovely greater metropolitan statistical area, to the swarm and sprawl, to that clusterfuck-by-the-sea called L.A. The edge is forever dropping away there, but people pretend it isn’t happening because so much else is happening and not happening. There’s a whole continent at our back, crowding and pushing; and the place starts to jump, flinging up myths-that-move in gorgeous Technicolor; and there’s music too: Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan and June Christy and Stan Getz and Yardbird and Zoot Sims and Chico Hamilton, making with the cool sounds. Go west until you can’t go west anymore because you can’t swim, or because the water’s too cold (we’re working to change that). See signs of civilization. Run. Go crazy. It’s nirvana, baby, until it isn’t.

We survived the first four years of the Eighties in Southern California, under the roof-rat-infested fortune palms, waiting for a sign ... but when it came, or if it came, it must always have been meant for somebody else.